U.S. District Court Judge Gershwin A. Drain, an Obama appointee, will hear Davis v Johnson on Thursday, May 15, at 10 a.m. This is the case in which Robert Davis, a candidate for re-election to the Highland Park School Board, hopes to invalidate the Michigan law that requires circulators for candidate petitions to be registered voters. The School Board election is non-partisan.

The request for the hearing makes reference to Congressman John Conyers. The brief says, “Plaintiff Davis believes the Court should be aware that the question of whether Congressman John Conyers will have sufficient signatures to qualify to have his name placed on the August primary election ballot will be impacted similarly by this Court’s decision on Plaintiff Davis’ motion.”

The state’s brief is due Tuesday, May 13. It is possible the state will argue that, even if the state loses the Davis case, that has no impact on Conyers. The state might argue that there is a difference between non-partisan candidates such as Davis, and candidates running in a partisan primary such as Conyers. However, if the state does make that argument, it would seem to be a weak argument. Michigan does not have registration by party. If Michigan did have registration by party, the state could argue that only party members should be allowed to circulate candidate petitions and the only way to know if the circulator is a party member, is to require that the circulator be registered. But, without registration by party, that argument can’t be made.